All revved up

Saying goodbye to the Bay Area wasn't easy for Dusty Baker, but he's getting acclimated as the Cubs' manager. `I know I'm supposed to be in Chicago,' he says.

January 17, 2003|By Bonnie DeSimone, Tribune staff reporter.

SAN FRANCISCO — It's dark as dusk at midday in the Marina district, with a low, oppressive cloud ceiling and continuous drizzle periodically swelling to a downpour. Dusty Baker breathes deeply, drinking it in.

"I love this," he says. "But it was time to go."

At the restaurant he has chosen for lunch, the bartender, a Chicago native, has taped a Cubs poster to the mirror over the back bar. People eye Baker discreetly from their tables, then begin to approach him. An older man in leopard-print suspenders asks him to autograph a menu. A prominent politician pumps his hand. Everyone wishes him luck.

"All right, brother," he says heartily. "Thank you, man."

It has been a prolonged farewell these last few weeks, a cross between a graduation party and a wake.

Most professional athletes don't have the luxury of working near home, but Baker has been based in California since the mid-1970s as a player for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants, the Giants' hitting coach, and subsequently their manager. His Pacific Bell Park office was within easy driving distance of his family in Sacramento and the hunting and fishing spots he has favored since he was a teenager.

Now Baker is leaving his comfort zone for a job whose recent history is as turbulent as his own has been stable: He has become the Cubs' 16th manager in 20 years. He is making the rounds this week during the team's pre-preseason publicity binge and will report to spring training in Arizona in less than a month. In a mildly theatrical twist, the Cubs' first exhibition game Feb. 27 is away, against the Giants.

Like anyone in transition, Baker, 53, is deciding what to bring, what to leave behind and what to tackle first when he arrives. The motorcycle comes. So do five former Giants coaches. The hunting dog stays, much to his chagrin, because a downtown high-rise is no place for a German shorthaired pointer. The winning habit?

"I expect us to win," he says. "First we have to get to .500. That's not going to satisfy me necessarily, but when you won 65 games, you have some work to do. You have 16 games to get to .500. Then you start attacking the rest of it.

"The other thing that intrigued and excited me about this team was the young pitching staff. Just because they're good, and young, doesn't mean they know how to win yet."

Baker is surfacing after a period in which he went underground to recuperate from a stressful autumn. There was the elation of reaching the World Series with the Giants; the twin blows of losing the seventh game and then losing his job after a bruising public feud with Giants owner Peter Magowan; and finally the adrenaline of pulling on a new ballcap for the first time in 14 years.

"I'm not going to say my feelings weren't hurt some because I put my heart and soul in this town and this area and this team," Baker says. "But I have nothing bad to say about the Giants. They gave me an opportunity to be in a position to go to the Cubs, to be wanted.

"The final result, the way I look at it, is we were good for and to each other. I have a few bricks in that stadium over there myself."

Still, the pace of events and the conflicting emotions drained him. He struggled with how to say goodbye to his former players and eventually wrote them Christmas cards. With the exception of Sammy Sosa--who phoned while vacationing in Paris to congratulate him--Baker did not talk to any Cubs players, feeling he should wait until off-season moves shook out.

So unfamiliar is this new terrain that Baker, dressing for his first photo shoot, had to ask longtime Cubs media relations director Sharon Pannozzo whether the team wore blue or black shoes. Even that served its purpose.

"I didn't know whether to be happy or sad, and I'm rarely like that," Baker says of the days after the World Series. "You know when I really felt better? It was that day I came to Chicago and put the uniform on and looked at myself in the mirror. It looked pretty cool. The uniform heals."

A more important sense of closure came last month.

On his way to a family vacation in Hawaii shortly before undergoing surgery for prostate cancer in late 2001, Baker spotted a magazine article about a healing center on the island of Kauai. A century ago, Japanese immigrants cut a trail through the lush vegetation covering the hillsides and built 88 stone Shingon Buddhist shrines. People have been praying there since. Many observe the ritual of taking home a small pouch of dirt and returning to replace it after weathering whatever crisis brought them there.

Baker was drawn to the site. He was raised Baptist, but his spiritual side is fed by many springs.

"Dusty will stop and pray in any open church, no matter the denomination," says Melissa Baker, his wife of eight years.

He walked among the shrines. He brought back his own pouch and tucked it into a desk drawer. When he thought about it nestled there, he could summon up the serenity of the place.